Recently I received a text message that contained this gem:

“you’re waiting, bent over the desk, chemise immodesty parted…”

Now, sexy though that may be (for the record, it is), it is not something that I want to have bleeped to my pocket. Texts have a disturbing immediacy that emails don’t. An email says ‘I have something to tell you, and I have taken the trouble of sitting down and composing it.’ An email elevates you to a status of importance. It usually contains more information, some gossip and, if you’re lucky, a link to something that you might like. An email respects you, it lets you know that you can take your time in replying, mull over your response, and consider carefully before you commit to anything in writing. I love email.

A text, on the other hand, is a conversation killer. You could be halfway through a gripping novel, a relationship crisis or a cheese soufflé and your mobile leaps up; blaring, buzzing and all but hitting you in the face screaming ‘pay me attention! I’m important! Feed me words, you fucker!’

I don’t like texts. My friends complain that most of their texts go unanswered, but that’s because most of their texts come when I’m in the middle of something that I think is more important. I frequently experience irrational bursts of hatred towards my nearest and dearest because they text me inanities while I’m at work, inanities to which I feel duty-bound to reply.

And if you (get ready to shudder) “sext” me at work, chances are it will enrage me even further. Lovely though it is to imagine you bending me over something solid then humping me frantically like a bonobo with an audience, it won’t help me get this strategy document written.

Here’s where I backtrack so you don’t think I’m a giant bitch

I’m not always a terrifying harridan – I think some texts are great. There is nothing I love more than a good old romantic text, particularly one that doesn’t invite an immediate response. A well timed:

“It might be the whiskey talking, but the whiskey says I miss you every day.”

can be the best thing that’s happened to me all week. A romantic text is always welcome. And on the few occasions when I am in the mood for conversation or sexy chat I’ll leap to my phone like an excited teenager, cradling it in my arms and soaking up the misspelled words and predictive-text fuck-ups contained therein.

But these moments are few and far between. The fact remains that, on the rare occasions when people do text me with sexy content, there is an 80% chance it will make me want to punch them.

Sexy emails? Great. I’m sitting at my computer so would probably have been planning a wank anyway. Sexy texts? It’s like a double glazing salesman ringing your doorbell during dinner and then slapping you in the face with a semi-flaccid dick.

Don’t even get me started on phone calls.